Cabaña Mujer Montuna

Our Cabaña Montuna, located in the same community in Puerto Rico that raised us, was built with our own hands—with the mastery, love, and guidance of my father, Don Manuel, and the support of community neighbors who would come together after long days of carpentry to share Doña Aida’s (my mom’s) meals. This was our first carpentry school.

This space is now Partería Montuna’s preventive health popular care center and popular education studio—where community organizing, healing, and agricultural projects take root. It is home to our nursery of plants, flowers, and medicinal herbs, and where apothecary magic happens. It is also a sacred place where Doña Niña’s (our Abuela’s) blessings live on, and where our collective ancestral knowledge continues to be practiced, shared, and honored.

This is also where Montuna begins its small food sovereignty and agricultural projects—grounded in the belief that healing, nourishment, and land stewardship are inseparable.

Within our Cabaña Montuna, this work comes to life through:

  • Ancestral herbal and agricultural practices

  • Small-scale food sovereignty projects rooted in land and community

  • Agriculture and food justice initiatives

  • A community-led plants, flowers, and medicinal herbs nursery

  • Apothecary practices and traditional plant medicine making

  • Preventive health and popular care practices

  • Popular education and community organizing spaces

  • Traditional Comadreo (companionship and collective care)

  • Santigüadoras (sanctifying healers)

  • Community-led workshops responding to locally identified needs

We extend this belief into all of our community practice because we understand healing as a collective responsibility—one that began in the mountains that hold our Cabaña and continues through every space we nurture. Your donations and service requests directly support this work, sustaining 100% of the projects rooted in this land, this knowledge, and this community.

Two men standing on a construction site with a lush green hillside in the background, one holding a water bottle and the other looking towards the landscape.

My dad involved in the leadership of our cabin

A woman working on a construction project with rebar and cinder blocks, wearing casual clothes and a headband, outdoors during daytime.

The beginnings of my carpentry school

Two men in checkered shirts and boots smiling and standing in a hole at a construction site, with a woman operating a yellow cement mixer nearby and a man holding a shovel.

Community supporting the constructions

Interior view of a wooden house under construction, showing unfinished stairway, wooden support beams, and a partially installed corrugated metal roof. Trees with orange flowers are visible through openings in the structure.
View through a wooden window frame showing lush green banana and tropical plants outside.
A house with a blue metal roof surrounded by greenery and trees.
A close-up of a plant with elongated green leaves and a yellow flower with red veining.

Preserving our traditions with the gandul

Close-up of a pineapple plant with green leaves and a developing pineapple fruit.
Footwear, gardening tools, cut tree logs, and a green leafy plant in a grassy outdoor area.
A wooden house surrounded by lush green tropical plants, with closed window shutters and a triangular roof.

Spaces for community meals, heal, and rest

Close-up view of a moss-covered black rock with small holes, in a natural outdoor setting with green foliage in the background.

Ecological walks

A tranquil forest stream flowing gently past moss-covered rocks with lush green foliage overhead.

Preservation of our natural resources

A person tending to a garden surrounded by lush green plants and trees under a partly cloudy sky.
Coffee cherries drying on a red and white striped cloth outdoors with trees and sky in the background.
Person sitting near a campfire at night, with tents and vehicles in the background.

Community nights and bonfires

Three cows resting on a grassy hill behind a wooden fence, with trees and a partly cloudy sky in the background.
Close-up of white flower clusters and green leaves on a tropical plant against blue sky.

Nursery of fruit plants and trees

A small house with a blue metal roof and wooden walls located on a lush green hillside surrounded by tropical plants and trees.
A lush green hillside with scattered small houses and trees, some roofs painted in bright colors like blue, with natural surroundings and hills in the distance.
A woman smiling and holding a tangled piece of roots or vines in a lush, green forest setting.

Preparing lands and soil to avoid landfalls

A man with gray hair and a beard holding a bright orange shrimp in his hand near a body of water, with sunlight shining down.
An older man and a young boy sit on concrete steps observing a small black cat and lush green landscape with trees and hills under a partly cloudy sky.
Hand holding a pod surrounded by green and red beans in a colorful bowl.
Person harvesting a bunch of green bananas from a banana plant on the ground surrounded by dry leaves and green plants.

Continuing ancestral agriculture practices

A two-story wooden house with open window shutters on the lower and upper floors, revealing inside rooms. A large green leafy plant is in the foreground.
Close-up of a citrus fruit growing on a tree with green leaves against a clear blue sky.
A homemade geometric structure made from sticks and string hanging in a kitchen with open shelves filled with dishes, cups, and kitchen utensils. A red plastic shopping bag hangs on a cabinet handle beneath the structure, and a tiled countertop is visible.
A person crouching in a grassy field holding a camera, surrounded by trees and plants under a blue sky with clouds.

Reforestation, intergenerational exchange, preservation of cultural practices, and hospice.

Close-up of a brown sheep with curly wool, standing indoors with a concrete ceiling in the background.
Small green plant supported by wooden stakes in a garden bed with soil and dense green foliage in the background.
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Close-up of vibrant purple and pink spider flowers (Cleome) with green foliage in the background.

Plants nursery

An older man with gray hair wearing a blue and orange striped sleeveless shirt is digging in the dirt beside a small pipe in a garden with green plants and banana trees.
Small potted plants, mostly young seedlings, arranged outdoors on a tray and the ground, surrounded by soil and other greenery.
Close-up of a halved coconut with brown, textured shell, placed on a wooden surface near a green wall.